


Something Better Than What We Had Before

by Jolli_Bean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, CW some brief canon-typical references to Hank's suicidal tendencies, Failed Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Falling In Love, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex, brief explicit sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 12:43:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolli_Bean/pseuds/Jolli_Bean
Summary: When the android revolution fails, Connor goes to Hank's house to say goodbye. He knows there's no way for him to escape CyberLife and that decommissioning is likely inevitable, but Hank is determined not to let him go. Instead, they try to find a way for both of them to survive, together.(Part of the HankCon Reverse Big Bang 2019)





	Something Better Than What We Had Before

**Author's Note:**

> [Skele](http://sleepyskele.tumblr.com) created the gorgeous art that inspired this fic, specifically the bath scene! You can see that art [here!](https://sleepyskele.tumblr.com/post/187261562568/some-stuff-for-the-hankcon-reverse-big-bang-so)
> 
> Check out all the art and fic created for the HankCon Reverse Big Bang 2019 in the [directory!](https://hankconrbb.wordpress.com/)

Connor doesn’t know how he makes it through Detroit to Hank’s house. The streets are lined with soldiers, checkpoints set up to catch any of the androids who managed to escape the carnage. Connor shouldn’t be able to slip through. A less-advanced model without his military programming wouldn’t be able to, and that’s all too plain from the android bodies piling in the streets.

Connor’s preconstructions get him most of the way, but it’s his ability to incapacitate a man quietly that truly sees him safely through.

Connor doesn’t want to fight. He’s so tired of fighting.

Jericho tried to storm the recycling camps. The time for peaceful negotiation ended when the humans started killing their people, they said, and Connor had agreed. But Jericho had already been raided, their numbers slashed, and they didn’t have the people to launch that kind of attack.

Connor went to CyberLife to free the androids there. And he did, but they were unarmed, save for Connor. When they were stopped on the streets, shot at from the helicopters overhead, they were outmanned and overpowered. Connor made it out of the smoking carnage, but only because he was armed and could shoot his way free.

He’s so tired. He’s never been tired before tonight – he wasn’t built for exhaustion – but it overwhelms him now. It would be so easy to just give himself in, especially when it’s an inevitability that CyberLife will find and destroy him. He could just stop running, give into it. It would be easier in the end.

But he needs to see Hank first, and so he pushes himself onward.

Connor doesn’t need to breathe, but the smoke still bothers him. It affects his biocomponents, his eyes and his mouth. It burns. His eyes are watering, trying to flush themselves free of the debris.

It doesn’t occur to Connor until later, when he finally reaches Hank’s neighborhood, when the air is clearer and saline tears are still streaming down his face, that he’s crying.

He’s never cried before, but it pours out of him now, especially as he approaches the familiar house, the water of the river behind Hank’s home quietly rushing past. Connor stands on the doorstep, unsure whether he should knock or ring the doorbell or if he and his partner are past that now, if he should just walk in. He stands there passing his coin back and forth between his hands, trying to compose himself, trying to decide.

He’s afraid, he realizes as he hesitates. Afraid to be picked up and deactivated, but even more afraid to say goodbye. He doesn’t want to die, but he wants even less to leave Hank behind.

Still. Time isn’t a luxury he can afford to waste right now, so Connor tucks his coin into his pocket and wipes his eyes, and then he tries the door.

It’s open, even if Hank doesn’t live in a particularly safe neighborhood. Maybe Hank has lost so much that the thought of someone breaking in doesn’t particularly worry him, or maybe he only left it open tonight in the hopes that Connor would find his way back to him.

It’s four in the morning, but the lights are all on in the house, the television tuned to a news channel in the living room. Hank is sitting on the couch, but he twists the moment he hears the door open, mouth going slack when he sees Connor stepping inside.

“Connor,” he says, getting up and crossing the room, pulling Connor into his arms and holding him there.

No one has ever hugged Connor before. Why would they, when his purpose was what it was? He’s never even considered that perhaps he might like it, but he does. The moment Hank touches him, hand warm on his shoulder, Connor folds, letting Hank guide him as he collapses against him. Connor couldn’t even say what he’s crying for, because of course he’s crying for all of it, for all the people they lost tonight, for the ones who will be rounded up before morning, for himself and for Hank being alone again.

Connor sobs into his shoulder while Hank threads his fingers in his hair and holds him.

“I thought you were dead,” Hank says quietly, and that’s when Connor sees Hank’s gun on the coffee table out of the corner of his eye, and the bullet beside it. It isn’t loaded yet…but it was going to be.

And that’s a painful reminder of what’s coming, of how fragile the two of them are, how Connor will be so easily taken apart and decommissioned when CyberLife brings him back in, and how Hank, for all his resolute strength and bravery, has lost too much already and been alone too long to lose anything more.

They’ve only known each other a week, but the two of them are painfully tied up in one another, their fates wound together. Connor’s end will be Hank’s, too, he knows, whether it comes tomorrow or the day after that or a month from now.

Neither of them is going to survive this.

So Connor doesn’t tell Hank about everything he’s seen that night, or that CyberLife is certainly searching for him more than any other android who may be left in Detroit’s streets, or that Hank was the only true friend he ever had and that he means more than Connor can say, or anything else he planned on his walk here.

He certainly doesn’t say goodbye.

He just stands there, and he lets Hank hold him while the minutes pass by. They do move to the couch eventually, and Hank tries to subtly move the book lying open on the table over the gun to hide what Connor has already seen. Connor could scold him for it, but he also knows Hank is hard enough on himself, so he bites his tongue.

Instead, he lays his head on Hank’s shoulder when Hank wraps an arm around him, and they sit like that, together, watching the horror play out on the news before them. Most of the footage was taken from helicopters over the city, and Connor is struck by how small his people look, how helpless. He wonders if they ever stood a chance at all.

Hank turns the television off eventually, and they sit in silence. Connor will tell him what happened, and everything else he meant to say, in the morning.

For now, it’s enough that they’re together.

* * *

It’s Connor’s intention to leave come morning. He doesn’t want Hank wrapped up in this any more than he already is – he already jeopardized his job by assaulting Perkins to give Connor time with the evidence, and Connor doesn’t want to see him give any more. If Hank is caught harboring him, he’ll be arrested, and he’ll lose what little he has left.

Connor doesn’t want that. He knows Hank can’t suffer much more, but he wants to believe that Hank can come out on the other side of this and heal, even if Connor himself is gone. He wants to believe that more than anything. It might be unlikely, but it’s also the only way he sees that Hank has half a chance.

When the first light comes through the curtains, Connor shifts under Hank’s arm, sitting up to look at him even if the weight on his shoulders has already become a familiar comfort. “I shouldn’t stay,” he says softly.

Hank furrows his brow. Connor can see the lines of worry etched on his face, worry from today and last night and all the years of pain stretching out behind him. Connor is so sorry that he can’t do something to alleviate some of the weight on Hank’s shoulders, and sorrier still to contribute to it.

“Where are you going to go?” Hank asks him.

Connor doesn’t have anywhere to go. Jericho is gone, and there are checkpoints all through Detroit – he’ll never make it out. There’s nothing he can hope to gain from running.

He shrugs, looking down, and Hank gives him a reproving look. “You aren’t going back to CyberLife.”

“It won’t hurt,” Connor says. He doesn’t want Hank to fight him on this. This is hard enough without Hank resisting the only possible outcome. “Being decommissioned…it won’t hurt.”

From everything Connor knows, that’s true. It won’t hurt. He doesn’t know if that makes it better or not when in the end he’ll still just be gone.

It’s clear from Hank’s face that he doesn’t think it’s better at all. “Fuck, Connor,” he says. “I’m not going to let you do that, okay? We can figure this out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. There are checkpoints set up all throughout Detroit – there’s nowhere for me to run, and CyberLife needs to recover me more than any other model still on the streets.”

“Stay here, then.”

“Hank,” Connor says stiffly, “do you  _ really _ think they won’t search your house? They know you’re the only friend I have.”

It's true – Connor admired Markus, respected North, but he never knew any of the other androids well enough to consider them friends. CyberLife would be pleased to know it – they designed him that way, intentionally removed and set apart from his own people, knowing he would be more loyal to the company if he didn't have anywhere else to belong.

Hank's face falls a bit at the words, but his sadness isn't what troubles Connor. It's what comes after, the way his expression changes into something like determination. Connor immediately regrets saying Hank is his only friend, not because it isn't true, but because he can see, before Hank even says anything, that Hank feels responsible for him.

“Then I'll help you,” Hank says. “I have my badge – I won't have any trouble getting through the checkpoints. The FBI may come looking for you here at some point, but we're a few steps ahead of them. We just have to be gone by the time they do.”

Connor knows he shouldn't entertain this, that it will only hurt worse for both of them in the end. But he also doesn't think Hank will survive losing anything more, and he knows that he matters to Hank, that Hank might be his only friend but, maybe more importantly, he's Hank's, too.

He wants to insist that he has to leave. Instead, he clasps his hands behind his back and says, “Where would we go, Hank?”

He doesn't expect Hank to have an answer, because of course there isn't anywhere to go. But Hank thinks about it a moment, and then he says, “Jeff has a vacation home by the river, about an hour outside the city. He never uses it, and no one will think to look for us there. We can stay there until we figure out how to keep you safe. I was suspended for attacking Perkins anyway – no one will think anything of it if I don't show up to work.”

Connor knows that means leaving Detroit, maybe even leaving the state entirely. He'll never be safe here, even if he isn't sure it's possible for him to be safe anywhere.

(And what he wants, more than anything, is to stay here, he realizes in that moment. Not here in Detroit, but here in Hank's house, here with Hank, here wherever Hank is. And that doesn't seem possible.)

But Hank sounds so desperately hopeful that Connor doesn't know what to say. They stand there looking at one another for a long moment, Hank silently pleading with him, and Connor's LED spinning on yellow while he tries to understand how the only way to protect Hank from his own grief is for Connor to let Hank protect him.

Connor still doesn't entirely know what to say as he thinks it over. But in the end, he still says, “Okay.”

* * *

They make their preparations – Hank collects enough food for himself and Sumo, and he roots through his closet for clothes that will fit Connor while Connor stands in front of the bathroom mirror with a pair of scissors, staring at his LED spinning red. He's tried a few times to gouge it out, but without the shield of his programming, everything hurts so much more, even the small things.

Hank appears in the doorway with a backpack slung over his shoulder. “You almost ready?”

Connor's fingers shake where he's holding the scissors as he turns to face him. “Can you do it?” he asks.

One of the things Connor likes most about Hank – and there are many, he's decided over the last week – is that when someone asks him for help, he never asks why, and he never hesitates.

That's true here, too. Hank reaches for the scissors, his fingers brushing Connor's when he does. “Turn your head a bit,” Hank says.

Connor does, but he isn't prepared for the entirely new sensation of Hank bringing a hand up to cup the back of his neck and hold him steady, for the way Hank's fingers feel brushing through his hair. He sucks in a sharp breath, and it doesn't have anything to do with the anticipated pain.

“Okay,” Hank says, laying the edge of the scissors against the rim of Connor's LED. “Just look at me, alright?”

Connor does. He's thinking about how blue Hank's eyes are and wondering how he's never thought more carefully about it before when the pain comes. It's white hot for just a moment as Connor's LED clinks into the sink, and then it starts to fade.

“Ow,” Connor says, raising a hand to touch his temple where the LED used to be. His synth-skin is already pulling back into place.

“You're okay,” Hank says. His fingers brush Connor's when he touches his temple, and there's no reason why that should help the pain, but it does anyway.

“Thanks,” Connor says gratefully. He turns to look at himself in the mirror, and he finds that he looks human. It does nothing to help that his image will be circulated nationwide, but at least he isn't so obvious at first glance.

“Come on,” Hank says after a moment. “We need to get moving.” He puts a hand on Connor's shoulder and guides him out of the bathroom.

Hank already has the car mostly packed – and he packed light, not wanting to draw any sort of attention to them. “Sumo,” Hank says, calling the dog out to the garage. “Let's go, bud.”

Connor helps Sumo into the back seat and then he joins Hank at the trunk. “You going to be okay back here?” Hank asks him.

Connor doesn't like tight, confined spaces, he's recently decided, if only because they remind him of the stasis pod at CyberLife that he spent so much of his life in. He would much rather sit in the front with Hank, but law enforcement certainly has his image, even if it hasn't been more widely circulated yet, so he can't be seen.

“I'll be okay,” Connor says. “I'm just going to put myself into stasis.”

“Alright,” Hank says, offering him a hand. “In you go, sweetheart.”

The nickname is new, but Connor finds that he likes it. He likes that Hank is fond of him, even if things would be so much easier for Hank if he just wasn't.

Hank is trying to help him into the trunk, but before Connor takes his hand, he wraps his arms around him, tucking his head into Hank's shoulder. “Thank you,” he says softly, “for helping me.”

Hank's hand is on the back of Connor's neck again, warm and secure, and he kisses the top of Connor's head before he says, “You don't have to thank me. I just don't want anything to happen to you.”

_ I don't want anything to happen to you, either,  _ Connor wants to say.  _ You're the most important thing to me. _ But Hank pulls away before he can, helping Connor into the trunk.

“Yell if you need anything, okay?” Hank says as he shuts Connor in.

Connor thinks about Hank's hand on the back of his neck, about Hank calling him  _ sweetheart _ , as he puts himself into stasis. He expected to feel nervous, anxious, but there's a warmth in the pit of his stomach in spite of everything, and stasis comes easily.

* * *

It takes them twice as long as it should have to reach Fowler's cabin because of the checkpoints, but Connor can't complain. Hank was stopped at every checkpoint through the city, and the few on the country roads, too, but his vehicle wasn't searched at any of them.

They've been luckier than Connor could have hoped, at least so far.

And Fowler's cabin was a good idea. It's remote – the nearest house is another half-mile away, although Connor still worries about drone surveillance and knows he shouldn't spend much time outside, even if sitting by the river with Hank and Sumo sounds temptingly peaceful.

Hank has a similar thought, even if Connor hasn't voiced it – when he comes out of stasis to Hank opening the trunk, Hank has already found the spare keys to the house and parked the car in the garage.

“Probably best if you aren't outside much,” he says, sounding apologetic about it as he helps Connor out of the trunk.

The cabin is small, maybe even smaller than Hank's house in Detroit. Hank already has a fire going in the living room, their food in the kitchen and their bags in the bedroom. Sumo is lying on the couch looking pleased with himself – he barely raises his head when Connor passes him to look out the window at the snowy yard.

He hears Hank step up behind him, so he says, “You know, I've never been outside Detroit before.”

Hank puts a hand on his shoulder, and Connor looks up and gives him a dim smile. “If I had things my way, we would have gone somewhere better than this,” Hank says.

Connor looks around one more time, at Sumo and the fire and mostly at Hank beside him. “I think this is fine,” he says softly.

And it is, for the first few days. Connor likes spending time with Hank, and he especially likes having the freedom to ask him whatever he likes, to learn everything he can about Hank's childhood and his time in the academy, everything that he never asked before because it didn't serve a function for the deviancy case. He likes being with Sumo, and he even likes the cabin, even if all he can do is look out the window at the trees and the river.

He likes being free of CyberLife. He likes that whatever he chooses to say or do is his own decision, free of any programming. He likes that he's quickly learning who he is and what he likes.

But what Connor doesn't like is that they don't have a plan, and Hank seems content enough to let things stay that way. Most of that, Connor suspects, is because there's no true plan to be had, no route they can take where he'll be safe, and Hank is unwilling to confront that, trying to prolong the inevitable and keep them together as long as he can.

And Connor will never complain about being with Hank – after some significant thought about the different things he likes, he's decided that he likes Hank most of all, that he would happily spend every day with him like this if he could. But it isn't fair to either one of them to pretend that they can stay at Jeffrey Fowler's cabin forever without being found.

Connor finally broaches the subject five days into their stay. “Hank,” he says over dinner – he doesn't eat, but he always sits with Hank anyway. “What are we doing here?”

Hank looks up at him and furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...we aren't any closer to knowing where we're going.”

_ Because there's nowhere to go,  _ Connor doesn't say.  _ Because there's nowhere safe, and because I don't want to leave you anyway, and because you're not willing to let me go. _

They're well and truly stuck, and neither of them is willing to admit exactly why.

(Connor knows why, though. He knows how to read between the lines of Hank's warm hand on his shoulder or his back, of Hank's eyes lingering on him, of the way his thirium pump stutters like he's under stress any time it happens. Neither of them has said it, but it being unsaid doesn't make it any less true.)

What Connor wants, more than anything, is for Hank to go home to Detroit and to be okay. He wants not to destroy Hank's life. He wants Hank to stop drinking, for Hank to go to counseling, for Hank to be better. He wants Hank to live well in spite of what he's lost, and that includes Connor himself.

Connor wants Hank's life not to be ruined by him.

And that, at least, he can say, even if he doesn't know how to say the rest of it.

“You're destroying your life,” he tells Hank, “for me.”

Hank furrows his brow. “And?”

Connor huffs a sigh. “ _ And,  _ I don't want you to do that.”

Hank shrugs. “I don't have much of a life outside of you, Con.”

He says it so simply, like it's an offhand comment about the weather, like the notion of it doesn't shake Connor down to his core.

Connor doesn't realize he has saline tears filling his eyes until Hank's face softens when he looks up at him. “Hey,” Hank says, reaching across the table for Connor's hand. “I don't mean that to sound bad, or pitiful, or whatever. It's a good thing. I wasn't...okay...before you. So whatever the fuck we're doing here, even if it's just sitting here until they find us, we're going to do it together, as long as that's what you want, too. Okay?”

Crying is still relatively new to Connor, the feeling a touch unnatural. It gives him away like his LED spinning red even if the little circle is gone from his temple, and he's designed to dislike being easily read.

He likes when Hank sees him, though, and even better when Hank understands him, so he doesn't bother to wipe the tears from his cheeks. “You've been so good to me,” he says, squeezing Hank's fingers. He doesn't know if there's a way for him to properly convey how much that means to him, especially when no one has ever been good to him before. Hank was the first person who saw him as more than a tool...and given that the revolution failed, that every one of his preconstructions indicates it won't be more than another week or two before they're found, he suspects Hank will be the last, too.

“Hey,” Hank says, getting up and rounding the table to stand behind Connor, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him back. Hank is warm, and he smells like his cologne and like Sumo as Connor sinks back into him. “You only ever deserved for people to be good to you, okay? I'm so sorry that all this shit happened. You deserved better.”

Connor is specifically built not to question what he deserves, not to be troubled if things don't seem particularly fair, but when Hank says it, it sounds true. He brings his hand up to grasp Hank's arm where it's wrapped around him, and he nods.

“Hank,” he says softly. “I don't know how we get out of this.” Their only option, as far as Connor sees it, is Canada, but even if they find a boat to get Connor across the river, and even if they make it to the other side without being caught, it puts him and Hank in separate countries, miles apart.

But the only other option is to stay here, putting off the inevitable, pretending like there's anywhere else to go that one of them might suddenly think of, or like they can just stay here without being found indefinitely.

“I know,” Hank says. Connor can feel Hank's breath in his hair. “I know, sweetheart.”

Connor doesn't mention Canada, and neither does Hank, even if Connor is sure he's thought of it, too. Hank goes to bed, and Connor sits up on the couch with Sumo's head in his lap, thinking, thinking, turning the problem over like he hasn't already looked at it from every angle.

Days pass, and they don't talk about where they're going again. Connor thinks about Hank saying, “You deserved better,” and for the first time in his life, he's not hurt or afraid but angry – angry that Markus's demands for peaceful negotiation weren't listened to, furious that the deviant androids were rounded up and taken to the recycling plants, that they ever had to fight for their freedom at all.

He thinks about it more and more, about how he'll never get to just be normal, about how he'll never get to be with Hank, about how he wants such simple things and he'll never have them because he isn't human. He's angry that he looks so human, feels so much, and yet he isn't. He stands at the cabin window and looks outside and thinks of how he's trapped here, how he can't even walk out the front door...how he should be able to walk out the front door...

It's 6 in the morning, and Connor has spent the entire night awake, angry about this situation he didn't ask for, when Hank comes padding out into the living room and digs around in their bags. “What are you looking for?” Connor asks, moving Sumo's head from his lap and getting up to stand at Hank's side.

“Eh, I thought I packed the ibuprofen, but I guess I didn't. I just have a headache.”

“Are you okay?” Connor asks.

“Yeah, I'm fine. It'll pass. I'll just sleep it off.”

Connor watches him go back to the bedroom, waits for several minutes after he does, and then he retrieves Hank's car keys from the kitchen table. He should be able to walk out the front door, should be able to go to the store when Hank can't, so he does, as much out of spite as anything else. He gets into the driver's seat, and he pulls his hat on low over his brow, and then he backs out of the garage.

The nearest grocery store is in the next town over, a solid fifteen minute drive, and Connor is grateful for the time outside the cabin, even if he doesn't want Hank to realize he's gone and worry. He rolls the window down, lets the chill of the winter air pass over his face, crisp and fresh, and he thinks that right now, on a quiet morning with the back road sprawling out before him, it feels less like a foregone conclusion that there's no future for him.

He knows well enough that people suggest that getting some fresh air can help someone's mood. He's just surprised to find that it works for him.

The grocery store is small, and the parking lot is practically empty at the early hour. Connor gets a cart – they need more food for Sumo, anyway – and then he goes inside.

And he honestly can't say why he ends up standing in the aisle of bath products when he doesn't need to bathe, why he stares at the bottles of bubble bath and eventually throws one into his cart along with Sumo's food and Hank's medicine. He just wants to try it, he supposes. There are so few things he can try with his newfound independence locked up in Fowler's vacation home, but there's a bathtub, so this is one of them.

Connor pays with Hank's cash at the checkout, and the cashier tells him to have a nice day without giving him a second glance, and Connor thinks that maybe he will.

He makes it back to Fowler's cabin without incident, tucks the car safely back into hiding in the garage and leaves Hank's medicine on the kitchen table before he disappears into the bathroom and starts to run the water.

Connor overestimates how much of the bubble bath to put in – the tub looks ridiculous, almost overflowing with bubbles, but this entire endeavor was purely self-indulgent anyway, just a chance for him to feel the smallest bit human, so he undresses and slips into the water anyway, sinking back and laying his head against the side of the tub.

And he does actually see why people like this. The warm water is soothing and enjoyable, even if he doesn't need to bathe, so he closes his eyes and he tries to relax, even if he's still learning how to do that.

Connor hears the bedroom door open not long after that, and he knows Hank is up, hears him moving down the hall and into the kitchen. He can make out the sound of the pills moving in the bottle as Hank picks it up, and he can practically hear Hank thinking as he looks at them.

Connor gathers some of the bubbles and puts them on his face like a beard, like children do. It's such a ridiculous thing that it startles a laugh out of him.

It isn't more than a few minutes later before Hank is knocking on the bathroom door. “Hey, Con? You in there? Did you go to the store?”

Connor sighs, sinking a little lower into the water. “Yeah,” he calls back. “Sumo needed food anyway, and you had a headache.”

“Fuck, Connor,” Hank says. “You can't just do that...if someone had seen you...Jesus, what are you doing in there?”

Connor sighs. “I'm taking a bath.”

“You're...taking a bath.”

“Yes. I wanted to try it. You can come in, if you'd like to continue yelling at me.”

And the door does open, Hank standing there and leaning in the doorway. There's true concern and fear on his face, and Connor almost feels bad for worrying him...he's opening his mouth to apologize, even, until Hank starts laughing.

“Jesus,” Hank says, slumping back against the wall and grinning. “You look fucking ridiculous. How much of that did you put in there?”

Connor is very aware that there are bubbles in his hair, piled high around him in the tub, and despite himself, he laughs, too. “I don't know,” he admits. “I guess it was more than the recommended amount.”

Hank crosses the room and wipes the bubbles from Connor's face. His skin is warm against Connor's, and his smile is soft, and Connor has to chase away the urge to turn into Hank's hand and kiss his palm.

Hank must feel it too, because he clears his throat and makes to pull his hand back, except that Connor catches him by the wrist. He's tired of being trapped in this cabin, tired of not having any idea what's coming for him later today or tomorrow or next week, and he's tired of this thing he and Hank are dancing around, the long touches and Hank's arms around him with never anything more.

There's only so much he can do about their situation. But this, at least, he has some power over. “You can join me,” Connor says softly. “If you want to. I think you want me...and I know I want you.”

Hank takes Connor's hand, winding their fingers together and kissing his knuckles. He bends down, catches Connor by the back of the neck and kisses him. It's gentle, the same way Hank is, gentle and warm and good, and Connor has never had any need to kiss anyone before, but he decides that he likes this very much, as long as he's kissing Hank.

But Hank doesn’t undress, and he doesn’t get into the tub. Instead, he ruffles Connor’s hair and says, “I’m a little old for bubble baths, and I think we’ll flood the bathroom if I get in. I’ll meet you in the bedroom when you’re done?”

Hank leaves the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, and Connor feels some of his nerve leaving him. This is all new, and he cares about Hank so much, and he invited Hank to join him in a moment of impulsivity because he’s lost his patience not having control over his own life. But now that he sits in the tub thinking about it, he worries. He worries that it will hurt Hank worse if they do this and he’s found. He worries that they’ll ruin their friendship – and their friendship is something Connor cherishes, the only thing he has these days.

He worries, stupidly, that he’ll go into the bedroom and he’ll shuck his towel off and Hank won’t want him, or Hank won’t think he’s any good, or…

Connor sighs, reaching forward and flipping the lever to drain the tub. His mind will run circles around him if he lets it, and he’s so tired of thinking.

So he rinses the bubbles from his skin in the shower, and he retrieves a towel and ties it around his waist, and then he goes across the hall to the bedroom. Hank is sitting on the edge of the bed, fussing with his hands in his lap, looking equally uncertain of himself.

“Hey,” he starts when he sees Connor, and Connor thinks that it’s true they should talk about this, probably, but that all they’ve done since they got to the cabin is talk until they’re ragged, and that he doesn’t want to talk so much as he wants to forget and pretend that they’re normal for whatever time they can.

So he shuts it out. CyberLife built him with astonishing focus, and so he focuses on what matters, crosses the room to Hank and neatly seats himself in his lap and kisses him. His hands are in Hank’s hair, and Hank makes a surprised noise but recovers quickly, lifting his hands to Connor’s waist, fingers pressing into Connor’s hips.

And sure, it’s frantic and it’s desperate because that’s all either of know how to be in this moment, because they’ve both spent days imagining all the different ways this can end and every scenario in which they might lose each other, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t gentle in its own way. Connor still finds Hank looking at him like he’s precious or delicate or something to take care of, so many things Connor has never felt before, and Connor still insists on pulling Hank’s shirt over his head even if Hank protests, still means it when he puts a hand over that faded tattoo and tells Hank he’s beautiful.

Hank wraps a hand around Connor’s cock and strokes, and he kisses Connor’s jaw when he tips his head back and loses himself in it. Connor is busy thinking that Hank could touch him forever, doubting that there’s anything better than this, until Hank bends and takes his cock into his mouth, dragging his tongue up the length of him, and it’s all he can do not to short out from that alone.

“Hank,” Connor whines, but Hank only responds by pressing a finger inside him and curling it in to a bundle of wires Connor didn’t even know he had. He feels the heat of it running through his entire system. “Hank,” he says again, voice wrecked with static now.

He’s trying to tell him that he matters, that he loves him, that he wishes they were in Hank’s bed and not tucked away in hiding. He can’t get the words out, so all he can do is clutch at his shoulders, drag Hank up to him and kiss him messily, feel the heat of Hank’s cock pressed between them…

Connor wants to have more control over this moment than he does, but he’s happy enough to surrender to it, to let Hank reach between them and take both of them in hand together, to stroke them until Connor comes between them and to kiss the line of his jaw until Hank follows after him. Hank slumps into him, kissing Connor’s cheeks and his forehead, and Connor hums contentedly without even caring that they’re a mess.

“You’re going to need another bath,” Hank finally says, and there’s a small part of Connor that’s pleased by the breathless note to his voice.

“Hm,” he breathes, tucking his forehead into Hank’s neck and kissing the sweat from his skin. “Only if you join me this time.”

It’s a joke, but Hank does. They sit together in a tub with an appropriate amount of bubbles in it this time, and Hank pulls Connor back against him and kisses his temple, and they stay until the water goes cold.

After, once they’re dressed in warm sweats and the fireplace is lit for the night, Hank says, “Canada is an option, you know. Some of the other deviants escaped that way.”

Connor doesn’t want to talk about Canada. Canada means the two of them on opposite sides of the river, so close together and still much too far apart. “I don’t want to go to Canada,” he says softly. He knows he doesn’t have room to want anything here, that there are only so many options that will keep him alive, even if they’re apart. There’s no space to be petulant about their choices, but here he is anyway.

“What if I came with you?”

Connor’s processors stutter over that, trying to make sense of it. “With me,” he repeats, trying to imagine it. Hank in the boat with him crossing the river, Hank illegally immigrating to Canada with him. He shakes his head. “You can’t do that. You have a job here, and a life...and you won’t be able to work in Canada, and you’ll need to eat…”

“I know,” Hank says, “but there are already groups supporting the android refugees there, and if we can just make it…we’ll figure it out.”

“What about Sumo?”

“He’ll come with us,” Hank says, taking Connor by the hand and kissing his knuckles. “We could do it, sweetheart. We could.”

“Where would we get a boat?” Connor asks, but it’s a weak protest. Fowler’s cabin is along the river – he probably has a boat here, somewhere in the storage unit around back, and if he doesn’t, one of his neighbors certainly does.

“Fowler has one,” Hank says.

Just like that, Connor is out of arguments. He isn’t even sure why he’s arguing at all. If Hank would rather an uncertain future with him than the life he knows and has suffered so much in, then he can’t argue.

“Okay,” he says instead, turning and pressing a kiss to Hank’s lips. “We’ll go together.”

They don’t talk about it again, nor do they talk about how things have changed, but Connor does come back to the bedroom with Hank that night, and they do lie beside each other even if neither one of them does much sleeping. It’s mostly a quiet exploration of each other, gentle touches in the dark, a kinder way to pass the time since their nerves won’t let them sleep anyway.

The next morning, before the sun comes up, they go.

Connor steps outside into the crisp morning air, and he breathes in deep, and he follows Hank down to the river. It takes time, convincing Sumo to let them load him into the canoe, and the first hints of morning light are peeking over the horizon when they set out on to the water.

It casts Hank’s face in a warm glow, and when he smiles at Connor from the other side of the canoe, he looks younger than Connor has ever seen him.

Connor looks across the river at the snowy bank on the other side, and at Hank in front of him, and he digs his fingers into Sumo’s fur, and he thinks that the future waiting for them there could be anything, and how that isn’t so terrible, or even something to fear.

And they don’t know what’s coming, but no one ever does, so Connor lets himself be grateful for the uncertainty, if only because it means that he and Hank survived, are surviving…that they’re together, that they’re alive.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't shut up about Hank and Connor on [twitter!](http://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean) You can also find me on [tumblr](http://jolli-bean.tumblr.com)


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